Lewis MacDougall insists he is just like any other ordinary Scottish teenager.

He goes to school and likes to hang out with his friends and play football.

Or at least he does when he’s not joining Hollywood stars to act in major movies.

The 14-year-old from Edinburgh has been hailed as Scotland’s next major star with the release of A Monster Calls.

In the film – which is only Lewis’s second acting job – he plays alongside Sigourney Weaver, Liam Neeson and Felicity Jones.

The film follows Conor who is dealing with his mother's illness

The emotional fantasy drama is already hotly tipped for Oscars, with the young Scot receiving glowing reviews.

He is in almost every scene, playing a boy who is trying to come to terms with the imminent loss of his terminally ill mother, and who is visited by a fearsome monster.

So the fact he is still a down-to-earth schoolkid is a massive testament to his upbringing and his family, especially considering what he has been through in his personal life.

One year before filming began on A Monster Calls, Lewis’s mother Fiona, who had multiple sclerosis, died.

With the subject matter of the movie painfully close to home, Lewis admits he only went for the part after deep chats with his father William.

He said: “Along with my agent, we did have a discussion about going for it and decided we were perfectly happy to do it. The film is a really good opportunity. You don’t get a lot of chances like that. We jumped at it.”

Young actor Lewis MacDougall

In the film, directed by acclaimed Catalan film maker JA Bayona and based on the novel by Patrick Ness, Lewis’s character is going through hell.

He is watching his mum (Jones) succumb to cancer, while coming increasingly under care of his mean granny (Weaver) and being relentlessly bullied at school.

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It’s into this world that the giant tree-rooted Monster (voiced and performance captured by Liam Neeson) arrives, offering terror and truths.

Lewis says he believes that truth is vital when it comes to helping young people through awful circumstances.

He explained: “A lot of people can relate to Conor – adults as well as children – who have lost someone in their life. In a way, it gave me a bit more insight into what he was going through.

“But the more challenging scenes were challenging anyway because of the high emotion you have to get to. Those were probably the hardest parts of the film.

“The trouble for Conor, which wasn’t something I experienced, was that nobody was really telling him the truth. Nobody is telling him the full story, and that’s what makes him conjure up the monster.

“The book has helped people going through similar things to Conor and I hope the film can also.”

Lewis shot the film in three steps in 2014. He began in a mo-cap studio alongside Liam Neeson voicing the Monster scenes, then shot exteriors in Manchester and Blackpool before doing studio work in Barcelona.

He loved the knockabout fun of working in greenscreen leotards alongside the charismatic Irishman, then formed a very close bond with Jones, who was at the time of filming was heading for an Oscar nomination with The Theory of Everything.

This is Conor's second acting job

Lewis’s first acting job was in Pan, playing Peter’s urchin mate Nibs.

He hadn’t even considered acting prior to that, a confession all the more startling considering his cheeky charisma in Pan and the tour de force of A Monster Calls.

He said: “I went to a local drama group when I was nine as a fun thing, and they held an open casting for Pan in Edinburgh, and I did that.

“But it’s something I’ve realised I enjoy doing. I do want to contine, I hope that I can continue.

“I say, ‘You always hope, never expect,’ I have done two other films this year.

There was Boundaries, with Christopher Plummer and Vera Farmiga, and I just finished one in Ireland, the Belly of the Whale. Both were really good fun.

“Liam told me to relax and enjoy it all. I was a bit nervous at the start but he told me to relax and just enjoy the whole experience.

“From Sigourney, I watched her be respectful and treat everyone as equal, I admired that and would like to be like that myself.”

Considering the subject matter, the closest bond on the movie was between him and Jones.

He revealed: “We are extremely close in the film, so before we started shooting, we went out on these bonding sessions to try to replicate that. We went to the zoo together and we also went to a theme park and to dinner.

“She was really wonderful, and we got to know each other quite well.”

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Lewis added: “I don’t know that it came up but I guess the scenes with me and her, they are quite intimate scenes because the two characters are very close. A lot of that came from the rehearsal period, with us getting to spend a lot of time with each other.”

The film has weighty subject matter and an inspiring message. But Lewis is quick to point out that it’s also fun.

He said: “The first thing is that it’s an enjoyable movie. I guess one of the messages is don’t talk down to kids. Children can understand a lot more than people want them to.

“With Conor, the Monster is giving him lessons which are brutally honest, and that’s what Conor needs.

“Conor is struggling to be honest with himself too, so the message is to be honest with young people and yourself.”

With the movie out on New Year’s Day, it’s the beginning of a big 2017 for Lewis and he admits he is really keen to see how the film is received.

He said: “I am hopeful it will do welll. It has been out in Spain for a couple of months and is the No1 grossing film of the year.

“It has been doing really well and getting lots of love and positive messages, so I hope it will have the same kind of effect in the rest of the world.”

“I don’t know what my mum would think of it, but I’d hope she would be proud.”